A local network is a network that can cover a specific area, for example, a network covering a place such as an enterprise campus, a coffee shop, a hotel, a school, or an airport. After connecting to a local network in an area, user equipment can access the local network to perform a network service. In addition, with development of a local network, the user equipment may alternatively connect to the local network by using a mobile communications network provided by a mobile communications operator instead of conventionally connecting to the local network by using Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), to reduce deployment and maintenance costs of the Wireless Fidelity.
FIG. 1A is a diagram of a logical architecture of a mobile communications network. As shown in FIG. 1A, the logical architecture includes user equipment 11, an access node 12, a control plane node 13, and a user plane node 14. The user equipment 11 may access the mobile communications network by using the local access node 12. The control plane node 13 is responsible for connection management, security authentication, mobility management, and location management of the user equipment 11. The user plane node 14 is responsible for forwarding service data of the user equipment 11. In a currently provided local network connection method, the mobile communications network operator plans a specific location area identity for an area covered by each local network. The control plane node 13 is a dedicated control plane node deployed by the mobile operator for a location area covered by a corresponding local network, and is configured to establish a connection to the corresponding local network. When entering the specific location area, the user equipment 11 may send an access request to the access node 12 in the location area. When receiving the access request, the access node 12 forwards the access request to the dedicated control plane node 13 in the location area. After receiving the access request, the dedicated control plane node 13 automatically establishes a connection between the user equipment 11 and the local network in the location area.
During implementation of the present application, the inventor finds that the related art has at least the following problems:
In the foregoing method, when user equipment enters a location area, a dedicated control plane node automatically establishes a connection between the user equipment and a local network, to be specific, the control plane node establishes a connection by default. However, in actual application, the local network that is connected by default may not be a local network that a user wants to access or a local network with relatively high quality. Therefore, the foregoing method has relatively low flexibility, and has specific limitations. In addition, in the foregoing method, a specific location area identity needs to be planned for each local network, and a dedicated control plane node needs to be deployed. Consequently, deployment costs are excessively high.